


hello world, I'm your wild girl

by arestlesswind



Series: chasing the constellations (Petra Quill) [1]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Race Changes, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Genderswap, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-03-09 06:46:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3240185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arestlesswind/pseuds/arestlesswind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Petra Quill wears pants and leather jackets, shoots to kill and keeps for herself. She fights and fucks and escapes at just the last second, rides on the dust of stars and scavenges for the next pay, and despite all that, she doesn’t like cruelty. </p><p>She’s her mama’s girl, no matter what they make of her afterward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hello world, I'm your wild girl

**Author's Note:**

> Started this for fun, it evolved into something bigger. (Story of my writing life.) Lindsey Morgan is Petra, Lyndie Greenwood is Victoria, Sarah Shahi is Meredith, and see if you can guess who plays J'Son. If you know me, it's so obvious.

The rule of life on Petra Quill’s ship, number two: Wednesday night dance parties are mandatory.

(After number one, don’t fire weapons inside or pull apart pieces to make your shit, _Rocket.)_

They’re not always at night, and not usually Wednesdays, either. It’s more of a “whenever the fuck Petra thinks they need to jam” rule.

 _That’s_ usually to break up heated shouting fits, or to drag their asses out of bed (she blares _Don’t Bring Me Down_ and yells along extra loud because who knew a bunch of murderous, selfish, morally questionable former-bounty-for-hire morons could be so _lazy),_ or a celebration after they’ve done something superbly heroic. Even vaguely heroic.

Rocket bitches about the noise, but Petra catches him humming _Rocky Raccoon_ from his designated space in the engine room (she fucking _howls_ from the irony; no one else gets it). Hell, when the tapedeck jams and Petra actually nearly cries, he fixes it with, surprisingly, hardly a word. Then she ruins it by calling him bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and he throws a crowbar at her head.

Drax is an even bigger (pun intended) challenge, watching them like purple frogs were hopping from their noses. No dancing where he’s from, apparently. But Gamora shares the  _Footlose_ fable, and combined with the melody of _Take it to the Limit_ , it inspires him to wax poetic and long about the musicianships’ unmatched artistry, their magical ability to capture the sensation of his soul. Or some shit. The drink in his hand inspires him, too.

(They’ll get him on the floor eventually. If the tree can dance, he has no excuse.)

When Groot’s too small to join in, she plops him on her shoulder and grooves to _Superstition_ while cleaning the Milano, his twig arms bouncing happily.

It takes hours of pleading and her best flirty irresistible face, but Petra finally draws Gamora in with her pelvic sorcery. Meaning, Gamora lets Petra teach her to dance. The Charleston, the robot, MC Hammer Time, all the classics. The girl’s damn good for a former assassin, which Petra supposes makes sense. She spins and dips her until Gamora’s laugh echoes wild and raw through the ship, an unheard, unpracticed, surprised thing. It becomes Petra’s favorite sound.

Her favorite sight: Gamora’s smile, slight and subtle or wide with sharp teeth. Either way, it’s humbling to create. An honor. Even if Gamora wouldn’t believe her.

Nobody shoots or stabs anyone. Arguments trail off. Apologies are muttered. They even laugh, all of them at once.

Petra counts that a win.

*

They had dance parties constantly. Her and Mom. Baking cookies, socks sliding on the linoleum floor, belting lyrics until their voices cracked. Mom wasn’t sick, then.

When she was, dancing got harder. Mom motionless in that damn bed, Petra panicked at the stillness and checked her breathing constantly, warm and thin against her palm.

She doesn’t dream much. Maybe it’s a weird side effect of being half-Terran, half-whatever.

When she does, it’s always of losing the tapes.

*

She memorizes the lyrics on the new mix in less than forty-eight Terran hours. Maybe that’s another half-whatever thing.

*

She cried a lot, when the Ravagers first got her. Cried and screamed and swung her tiny fists and kicked her tiny feet. Bit the heavy, greasy hand to an outraged yell and roars of laughter somewhere above. These aren’t the boys at school who torture frogs and jeer _your mom’s a baldy_ after her hunched back, who mock her dark skin and dark eyes.

These are men.

(Not like Grandpa, gruff kindness and beer breath and Barbies every Christmas. Not the well-groomed doctors who politely ask again and again if Mom can afford the treatments, their gold watches glinting as they examine charts and take blood pressure.)

_I’m sorry, Mom, I’m so sorry, I’ll never be bad again I promise_

Pain arches through her neck and there’s blood, her blood, Petra knows she’s screaming _Mom, Mom, Mom!_ because the mocking term beats back at her, each good as a punch. That’s when she realizes she can understand words.

The first one to address her directly is Yondu, leaning over with hungry eyes and a wide mouth of shark-teeth. _It’s all right, now,_ he tells her half-crooning, _we ain’t gonna hurt one hair on ya lil’ head, girlie._ Some setting in the universal translator pounding near her jugular gives him the accent, an accent from home.

He slaps her cheek when Petra won’t stop blubbering. Petra stops.

In a flash of Godly light she’s tossed from Mom and only Mom, Mom with her terrible singing voice and nimble fingers sewing patches into Petra’s clothes; the curse-laded monologues she’s too frustrated to filter some days, when the bills arrive and people’s faces pucker up sour at the lack of a husband.

Mom, who cranks up _Rebel Yell_ on the radio and wants more more _more,_ more for them and more for Petra, kissing her forehead and stroking her hair and reminding Petra to count the colors in the flowers and the stars in the sky, do whatever she damn well pleases, as long as it’s safe and doesn’t hurt anyone.

Makes them hot chocolate on summer nights and spreads blankets on the faded Missouri grass, whispering _your dad will come back, but until then, sweetie, we have to look out for ourselves._ A team.

From Mom, her hands rough from chemicals and soaps and folding hotel sheets every day, to - this. Shouts and smacks and threats and death, knives and guns and bright bolts of energy. Dreams of alien teeth chewing her skin. The stink of rotting flesh and the dark color of blood.

Petra’s used to blood from the chemo. It was contained, not seeping onto the ship’s silver interior.

This is a world of men. Women are marks and scores and fucks. Petra learns early, and was always a fast learner when she wanted to be. She wears the pants she’s given, oversized by half, cleans the floors and brings the food ( _make yourself useful, little humie,_  Mom never made her clean but Petra did anyway when she was old enough to _realize)._

She learns hundreds of ways to kill a man before she’s ten. She’s practiced most of them by twelve.

She keeps her mouth shut until one of them tosses the Walkman into space for a laugh, how hard she clings to the only thing Mom had to give her daughter on her death bed. She screams _fuck you you motherfucking shit_ , her first words since the capture besides _yessir,_ and she’s in a suit and out the airlock before anyone can stop her.

(That’s where she got the idea for a retractable mask. Space suits are so _bulky.)_

She returns, Walkman clenched in defiant fists, to roars of applause and Yondu smirking, keen face on the edge of a decision that will rule the coarse of her life.

“She stays,” he bellows to the crew.

That’s that. She talks rough and crude as the rest, mimes callousness and forgoes altruism to survive. After the initial surprise wears off they like her spirit and her mouth and her aim with a gun, treating her if not one of them, then a good sport.

She wonders what Grandpa would say to her smart-ass mouth. Mom.

Mom’s dead. She doesn’t have anything to say.

At fifteen she gets her own specially modified weapon, stolen from Hala herself and kept as her just reward. A few months later she uses it on a crewman who shoves her onto the floor, his squeezing hands fumbling out her newfound tits, her long legs.

He’s the first man she killed this close. Petra smells his putrid breath on her neck for days.

Yondu, though. Yondu always meets her antics with cackling laughter and hard claps to her back. Her skinny legs go out from underneath her. Then they don’t.

He could have tossed her out the airlock within the first week, so Petra’s grateful. Never too much; the man who gave her a home by taking her from one. (A piss-poor excuse for a home, among space pirates, but it’s all she has.) So when they get wasted over a successful score or Petra tells him to fuck himself until he’s blue in the face, she stares at the ceiling of her room, headphones in her ears, and negotiates a fondness for the jerk. No matter how sentimental Yondu would tell her she is.

_You’re soft, girl. Softness gets you dead._

So Petra Quill wears pants and leather jackets, shoots to kill and keeps for herself. She fights and fucks and escapes at just the last second, rides on the dust of stars and scavenges for the next pay, and despite all that, she doesn’t like cruelty.

She’s her mama’s girl, no matter what they make of her afterward.

*

The only sound beating she ever got was losing cargo because she trusted another girl - a conwoman, it turned out, charming and brilliant and lethal. She took it right from under Petra’s nose, after she showed Petra how nice kissing can be.

Yondu yelled. He whipped her raw and Petra could barely move for days, had to sleep on her stomach because her back was ripped to shreds.

It was an invaluable lesson.

Women are powerful. Women are intelligent. Women are kind and caring and selfish and ruthless and not just marks or fucks and the galaxy is home to billions. It’s not a world of just Ravagers.

Several times, she considers running away with one.

She returns because she doesn’t know where else to go.

As a rule, she rarely hurts girls. Never kills, unless it’s a -or-be-killed scenario. Men she’ll steal from. Women, she splits the money and offers a good roll in the hay, if they’re up for it.

What Yondu doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

*

Of everyone, when he makes the very difficult and very concealed effort to engage, Rocket drifts to her the most. After Groot, which is a given. Probably it’s Petra’s foul mouth and her ability to drink him under the table. (Which isn’t hard. Cause, you know, he’s a tiny anthropomorphic mammal.)

Petra tosses a handful of credits onto the floor between them. “B-l-u-f-f-i-n-g," she sing-song spells.

“This would be way more fun if it were strip poker,” Rocket says, chin in palm and sighing over his cards.

“Man, I saw you naked in prison. What makes you think I wanna see that again?”

“I didn’t mean you, dipshit,” Rocket sneers, with a deliberate nod at Gamora’s turned back.

Petra blinks slowly. Groot shakes his tiny head, like they’ve had this one-sided conversation many, many times.

“First off, that’s objectifying and sexist. Second, you are aware she’s the deadliest woman in the galaxy, right? Third, hey, what’s wrong with me?”

The one time she kissed his cheek for shits and giggles, he went red beneath his fur and yelled for an entire day.

“Do you have five years?” he demands.

In revenge, and in thanks for letting him doze in her lap, Groot helps her cheat. Rocket wails at the betrayal.

“Oh, that’s just great. I saved your sorry ass, Quill, and this is the thanks I get.” He pokes a claw to Groot’s trunk. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Groot shrugs and squeaks.

“She is not nicer than me. You’re _lying._ You’re a terrible liar.”

*

She never saw a good role model for friendship as a kid and especially as an adult, or what you do with it (handshake? make a pledge? duet to _Lean On Me_?), but she makes an effort. Shitty, pathetic ones, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

She grants them free rein to pick their personal spaces on the ship, leaves them alone when they need it. Especially Gamora. Like her, Gamora values her privacy. She gets cranky fast without it, which means Petra runs away from flying objects a lot. (People like throwing shit at her head.)

There’s this tricky line they’re all learning to navigate between easing loneliness and too much noise. The voices in their heads are loud enough without company scraping at the doors.

But sometimes their needs aligns just right, and Petra and Gamora sit together in the quiet of the cockpit, watching the stars.

Sometimes Petra’d like to kiss her, but she doesn’t want to fuck it up. She can’t fuck this up.

The times they fill the silence with talk, the most personal she ever broaches is, “You sure you want to go up against your dad?” _Delusional, power-hungry, most powerful being in the universe dad?_

Gamora turns just at the neck, judgment frosting her mouth. “Yes,” she answers, conviction unwavering. The last survivor of the Zehoberei people, tortured and twisted. “Do you?”

“Not really. But I’m a hero now, so I guess I gotta be with you when you battle Darth Vader.” Petra makes lightsaber noises between her teeth, miming sword moves.

Gamora shakes her head, laughs quiet and fond. Says nothing.

*

Mom never talked about her dad much. Petra invented plenty of fantasies over the years - a war hero who died tragically. A mysterious prince from a faraway land. An asshole who walked out on them before Petra was even born, which is probably the most likely.

Those first few months on the Ravager ship, Petra imagines him her knight in shining armor, sweeping in to rescue and take home. Not necessarily Earth home. Just a place with a family unit greater than brutes, a pair of kind arms in which to sleep.

There are no white knights in space.

Eventually, Petra stops caring. He exists. Or he doesn’t exist. He’s no help, she’s on her own and made it on her own and who gives a fuck? If he showed up now, bets are she’d spit in his face.

Mom’s the one who loved her little Star-Lady. And Mom loved enough for a thousand parents, a thousand counted stars outside Petra’s window.

*

Because it’s Star-Lady, by the way. Not Woman, not Girl, and definitely not Princess. Though she’d make a kick-ass princess. Like Leia, just without the bun hair.

A single ponytail, thick and dark, swinging when she moves.

*

She's made the world her oyster, or whatever, the universe her playground.

It doubles as a hiding place, cold and dark and counting to ten with no one to find her.

*

“The woman who birthed you died?”

So tactful, that Drax.

“Yeah,” Petra mutters, feigning distraction, then repeats, “yeah. Long time ago.”

“Was she murdered?”

“No. She - it was an illness. Incurable.”

“That is its own kind of murder.”

“You’re pretty philosophical tonight.”

Drax harrumphs in the way that translates to _I don’t comprehend and I refuse to waste brain cells trying._

“Your mother would be proud of you, Petra Jason Quill,” he says apropos of nothing, his tone a period mark to a thought.

It’s hard for Petra to breathe, for a minute there.

*

“Jason? Hah. _Hah._ That’s a guy’s name.”

She never thought about that much, never really asked but assumed there was only one reason Mom chose to saddle her first and only child with something mockable.

(No last name; too many Jasons in the world to scroll the intergalactic phonebook.)

“Yeah, well. What kind of a joke name is Rocket anyway?” Petra sneers.

Not her best shot. Still, Groot giggles behind his tiny stick hands.

*

“So my dad’s a super-powered emperor with delusions of grandeur and a God complex the size of the known universe.”

Petra tilts her head.

_“Huh.”_

*

How Petra discovers she is the daughter and heir of J’Son of Spartax, Emperor to the Spartoi people and sort-of jackass, is through the most epically awesome and awkward way imaginable.

Petra’s half-sister finds her in a bar and kicks her pathetic ass across the galaxy.

Long-lost sister and long-lost dad in the same day. That’s gotta be a new one somewhere.

To her credit, Victoria’s pretty cool. _(Commander_ Victoria of the Spartax Royal Guard, complete with cloak and sword and golden armor. Is this what sibling rivalry feels like?) After whooping her butt until she cried, dark-haired, dark-eyed Victoria, a lot like her, presses a cold cloth on Petra’s bleeding forehead and kinda-not-really apologies for the need to take _extreme measures to ensure your transport._

Apparently this J’Son fellow’s been looking a long time.

Clueless and aching, Petra figures he must be an old mark she pissed off, or the relative of whoever wherever she did wrong. Nothing she can’t handle, once she’s got a read on the guy.

Victoria escorts her down a fancy hallway toward a set of fancy double doors in a massive, battle-powered spaceship, Gamora and Drax and Rocket with baby Groot under his arm following close behind.

“You’re _useless._ Totally useless,” Petra grumbles through her teeth. “Instead of rescuing me, you just managed to get yourselves kidnapped, too.”

“Hey,” Rocket hisses, “at least we _tried.”_

That they did. The fact warms Petra in the dark cockles of her heart, just a little.

And it’s not so much kidnapping, Victoria hastened to assure, so much as - forced travel.

They’ve nearly reached the end of the hall when the double doors slam open and a brown-haired, bearded, forty-something man with royalty’s face and a soldier’s bearing, wrapped in reddish-gold robes to his chin, bursts out in a half-run. He draws up short at their closeness, staring down at Petra from several inches higher. Not for the first time, she’s glad for her long legs.

His lips are parted, tongue silent, soulful but imperious eyes wide.

Petra coughs. Awkwardly. “Do I…have something in my teeth?”

The Emperor of Spartax closes his mouth.

“You look so much like your mother,” are his first words. A low voice, surprisingly soft.

And he starts to fucking glow with white light, tips of hair to fingers.

Petra stares at him.

“No _way,”_ she crows.

*

Tragic backstory time:

The Spartoi people are one of the ancient races, barely a memory. Sister-species to the far more genetically, medically, and technologically advanced Shi’ar, most are extinct from a devastating, thousand years war with the Ariguans. Among those remaining, a battle for power erupted. A political coup, the Emperor overthrown and assassinated by his conniving brother, so a life pod holding J’Son, only prince and heir, was sent directionless into space in a desperate escape effort. His ship crashed on Terra.

He met a woman named Meredith Quill. He fell in love, quick and deep, for a man who saw the passing of centuries. Not, perhaps, for a man who knew the frontlines of war. A beautiful man, kind and warm as the sun.

No life for him anywhere else in the galaxy, he chose to make a family with her.

They had just learned of their child when his uncle found him.

The father fled to protect his family from reprisal. The son left to protect his people from a tyrannical dictator.

When it was safe, he would send for Meredith, bring her and the child to live with him.

Human lives are so fleeting.

*

Gray stains his hair, up-close.

“So, um. What’s with the Christmas lights show?”

“A side effect of genetic mutation. During the war our ancestors experimented with stolen Shi’ar technology in order to imbue themselves with immortality. Not all attempts were successful, but we carry improved strength and greater longevity of life. And in times of great emotion, some Spartoi can…” J’Son pauses to smirk, as if at a memory. “Glow. Among other biological phenomenon.”

“Well, that’s. New.”

Petra glances down at her plate, piled high with vegetables and meat on the absurdly long dinner table in an absurdly spacious room. People of grandeur once lived here.

Victoria perches directly across on J’Son’s right, avoiding both their eyes. No one’s really talking much.

Most awkward family dinner _ever._

“It seems you guys are pretty up with the technology stuff now."

“Many advancements were made during my time as Emperor.”

“Neat-o. I guess. How old are you, then?”

“My age is several centuries.”

“Holy shit.”

“And you are?” J’Son asks, or more demands, but it’s not cruel; a man unthinkingly used to questions answered, orders obeyed.

“How old I am?” Never something she kept much track of, except to throw insults at Yondu, Petra does the quick math on her fingers. “Thirty-five-ish, I guess.”

Emotion passes over J’Son’s high, cheekbones-carved-from-stone face like a drop of ink in a clear glass. An obvious sanitation, but controlled in amount.

She sees, though, how easily it could spill.

“That’s almost half a Terran life,” he says, the quiet pitch that must be his normal cadence. Again, Petra suspects it's capable of leveling mountains.

“Yeah,” she says too flippant, “that you weren’t there for.”

Across from her, Victoria winces.

Her dad _(dad, living breathing alien close enough to touch, an actual noble prince)_ purses his lips, irritation targeted inward.

“I will put a bounty on Yondu’s head beyond his filthy imagination,” he murmurs.

Goosebumps spiral up Petra’s arms.

“Hey,” she says, hands raised, a slight tickling in her neck for her gun, “he’s, like, leader of the total jackasses, don’t get me wrong, but he’s not all bad. He kept me alive.”

“He kept you from me. I sent him for you and - ” Another strangled emotion, one he’s killed often. “Your mother. I promised him riches when the war was over, and he repaid me by stealing my daughter.”

He turns to face her, an complete bodily movement, and those deep eyes lock on better than a grappling hook and _hold_ her. “You should have grown up with your family. You deserved that much from me, when I couldn’t save your mother.”

“Save her?” Petra echoes. A sharp pain starts beating behind her forehead. “Did you know?”

J’Son doesn’t look away. Neither does she.

The room is star-drenched, ceiling-high windows reflecting the constellations outside the hovering ship. Designed as battle station first, living space for a dying people second.

“It was impossible for me to leave. I was leading a war against my own blood, and to see your mother would ensure her swift and certain death by my uncle’s hand. But I sent ships. Stealth carriers the size of a hand, designed to transport messages. Many did not return, or I suspect even reach Terra. But a handful found their way back to me over the years. I saw you as a newborn. I’m - grateful for that kindness.”

Briefly J’Son’s eyes close, a small upward tilt of his mouth.

“She never told me of the illness. Perhaps she could not. Perhaps she refused.”

The air feels thin, like someone sucked out the oxygen.

“Headstrong as always,” he says softly.

For once, Petra doesn’t have a comeback. She swallows and swallows again until her throat clears.

They don’t finish dinner.

*

He leaves her alone for a while. If alone equals badass, tall, _holy shit that’s a big sword_ Victoria guarding the door, but if she finally found her long-lost child, she’d be skittish about losing her, too.

For once, Petra decides to stay. She leans against the tall wide windows and watches the stars glow.

Her universe has become very small.

*

Along with bedrooms and war rooms and kitchen rooms, there’s a plant room with artificial sun. And because no one can refuse a happy wiggling Groot, that’s where her crew (such as they are) have huddled.

“So,” Rocket mocks all saccharine the instant she’s through the door, “how was Daddy?”

“What’s your problem, dude?”

“My problem is your dear dad’s a dick. A dick the size of my dick. Have you heard about the shit he pulled with the Ariguans? And all you can do is make goo-goo heart eyes at him.”

“Rocket, honey. You do realize your dick is not an accurate measuring rod.”

He gestures to Groot, who’s basking beneath the closest lamp. “See the respect I get?”

Groot trills consolingly.

“It’s true,” Gamora says, pushing off her haunches to both firm feet. “We know very little of this man and his people. Even if Rocket is misguided,” _(“hey!”_ ) “we should be wary of their intentions.”

“I know, I know. This is just all so…” Petra scrubs her face hard, headache blossoming between her temples. “Impossible.”

Drax looks up from whetting his knife, eyes furrowed in surprise. “Surely of anyone you understand the nature of procreation.”

Victoria’s leaning on the wall outside the plant room when Petra emerges, toes-to-head vibrating with irritation. And tiredness. She hasn’t slept since…this thing.

“Monitoring my movements?” Petra asks cheerfully.

“Technically,” Victoria admits. “But I’m trying not to be creepy.”

“From a six-foot gal with a sword, that’s appreciated.” Petra rubs her palms together like starting a fire. “So. Now what?”

Victoria cocks a casual, one-shouldered shrug. “Want a drink?”

Instantly, Petra brightens, and just as quick narrows her eyes. “You’re not psychic or something, are you?” she asks warily. “Is that a Spartoi thing I missed?”

“Just intuition. And reading your arrest record.”

“Then sister, you are a woman after my own heart.”

*

“I always thought I held my booze spectacularly well,” Petra remarks with pleasure when both of them are standing after the seventh glass of something she can’t pronounce but tastes _amazing._

“Spartoi thing,” Victoria says, arching a single intimidating eyebrow way too much like J’Son. Petra files away a mental note to try that in the mirror later.

“Okay, Wonder Woman, riddle me this. You work for him and he’s your dad, I get it. You probably can’t get away with talking shit. But do you actually _like_ him?”

Victoria taps her fingers against the glass. “He’s a fair and honorable leader. There were times, perhaps, when his arrogance overcame the idealism of his youth, and the need to protect his people in a time of war…demanded ruthlessness. But he kept us safe from our enemies.”

“The Arigunans,” Petra says. She pauses, navigating careful, and adds, “I’m no history expert, clearly, but I know they were wiped out.”

Victoria doesn’t deny. It’s kinda scary. A lot scary. “His past choices haunt him,” she says with well-placed, resigned calmness, “and so do my part as a soldier. But we both - hope for better.”

“My ship’s made up of people with pasts we’d rather outrun. I get it.”

“You’re the last to judge, Star-Lady.”

“Hey. I wasn’t that bad.”

The eyebrow again.

“Fine,” Petra sighs, more than a little petulant. “But I’m trying.”

“Everyone’s trying. That’s the point.”

*

“Can I go back to my ship now, or will you flip out?”

Every muscle in J’Son’s body stiffens to pounce, hard lines visible beneath his high-collared suit. “You’re leaving?”

“My friends are getting kind of cranky, you know, being hauled halfway across the galaxy to some weirdo’s palace in the sky. And I could use a nap in my own bed. Something’s given me a killer headache.”

"This is your home, Petra. You're welcome here, and it would please me.”

“Dude,” she groans on an exhale, “you don’t even know me.”

“I want to know you, if you would grant me the chance.”

“I’ve heard from lots of sources I’m not the greatest person to be around.”

“You prevented a war and channeled the power of an Infinity Stone."

“That wasn’t just me.”

“But you’re called _guardian,_ are you not?”

It’s true. The word whispers after their heels these days. For such a big universe, rumors travel fast.

“Even if you weren’t a Princess of Spartax,” he says, “there would still be a place for you among my people. As my child.”

“Wait what now? I’m royalty? Cool.”

A muscle in J’Son’s face twitches dangerous. “You’re avoiding the topic.”

“Probably because I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Petra moves to turn and he lays a hand on her arm, gripping beneath her elbow. Muscle memory balls her fist and slams it into his face, and he releases her, hand rising to steep the blood from his nose.

“Oh shit. _Shit._ Sorry, just - not a big fan of the touching thing.”

J’Son examines the blood dripping into his palm with an expression somewhere between bewildered and irritated. Maybe. Christ, he’s hard to read, still-water eyes and frozen-lake features. She can’t imagine him sweet and charming. Did Mom have stars in her eyes, or was he different then? Did she like them hot but stoic?

_You’re so much like your father. He was an angel._

“Excellent reflexes.” J’Son sniffs the blood back up his nostrils and sighs. “It’s been a very long time since someone laid hands on me.”

“Maybe you need to get laid, then. Does wonders for the whole stick-up-the-butt attitude.”

He smirks, mild. “Not since your mother.”

Wow, so sweet but _so fucking_ _awkward._

“I was not a father to you when I should have been,” J’Son says, reverting the convo back like parents do. “Let me be now.”

“I don’t know if I’m cut out for princess duties."

“I will be the last man to lecture you on duty. Besides, I’m beginning to sense you are untamable. Like Meredith.”

He says Mom’s name like something more sacred than a damn Stone. That, of all things, gets to Petra the most, right between her ribs, because she’s done the same.

“Look, even though I’m not big on this whole controlling dad angle, you can send Victoria along to the Milano. We’ll have a sleepover and paint each other’s nails. I just met you, okay? Even if I’m surprised and freaked and kinda scared - okay, scared as fuck, unless you go all Thanos on my ass, I'm not running.”

Letting her go, even to the docking bay, commands all his effort. He can’t take his eyes off her, rigid in place and growing smaller as she walks. But he lets her go.

Test number one.

*

Headphones over her ears, Walkman spinning, she almost doesn’t hear the restrained knock.

Gamora settles on the edge of Petra’s bunk, comprised of the eerie stillness marking a skilled predator. While her bones have loosened, some behaviors are too programmed.

“While our situations are…decidedly different,” Gamora begins, chewing each word as if it’s made of stone, “I understand - ” Searching for a word and finding none, she unhappily settles on, “Complicated families.”

Sighing, Petra switches off the Walkman, right before the chorus of _Cat’s in the Cradle._

“Victoria’s not so bad. Hell, he doesn’t seem so bad. It’s just…” She bangs her fist against the wall several times, not too hard. “Complicated. You know? My mom loved this guy, so there must be something decent about him. But like, if you were looking for me for this long and never found me until I got famous, your searching skills suck, but props for trying? _Fuck_ it.”

Gamora ponders this, lets the silence stretch. Finally she rests a hand on the Walkman. Petra looks to the contact, then up to her eyes.

“You lost your parents,” Gamora says. This time the words sound like broken glass, glued back together with cracks showing. “I know how this feels. I also know how it feels not to trust those you meet. Even to think yourself unworthy of friends. But if I were given the gift to know my true father again, even after this long…I would not hesitate to take it.”

Petra lifts Gamora’s hand off the Walkman and holds it.

Surprisingly, or maybe not, Gamora lets her.

*

Drax’s opinion is simple.

“If you have a family, you should be with them,” he says quietly. “Do not allow them to slip away while they still live.”

*

“If you leave, your loss,” Rocket mutters offhand. He won’t look at her, cleaning the same spot on an gear over and over, and he’s slurring his words. “My gain. I’ll get your ship. Won’t miss you underfoot and up my ass.”

“I am Groot,” wails Groot, high and reproachful.

“You! Shut up."

“ _I am Groot,”_ he repeats with even more emphasis.

Rocket sighs heavy and hard, like it’s a goddamn physical effort. Or he's just preparing to hawk up a hairball.

“Look, if you’re gonna go, Quill, just fucking go,” he snaps. “Just don’t take the good beer with you.”

 

*

“So. Uh. What do you. Like to do? When you’re not…you know, being Emperor.”

J’Son looks up from the book on his knee, momentarily distracted. Expression shuttered, eyes filtered through a lens, he closes the book on his index finger marking his place. Petra angles her head to the title. _The Little Prince._

_Mom read that to me. Mom read that to me._

He stares at her with an expression blank as, well, a very blank thing. “I’m always Emperor.”

“No, I mean, like. Hobbies. Me, I like shooting people and stealing things. Or used to. Reformed criminal and all that.”

Both legs sprawled over an armchair, Victoria’s face brightens. “I like that, too." After a sharp look from J’Son, she quickly amends, “Just the shooting. Or, in my case, stabbing."

Petra points. “See! That’s something we have in common. We can bond over kicking ass.”

J’Son’s brow furrows in concentration. “I was schooled as a poet, a soldier, and a pilot.”

“That’s a start, I guess. What else?”

“I suppose…” He glances at the book in his hand. “I enjoy reading.”

_“Nerd.”_

“Excuse me?”

He’s so confused, it’s adorable.

“Never mind. Did you, um.” Petra glances to the floor, rocks on her heels. She doesn't meet eyes when the subject is Meredith Quill. “What kind of things did you do with Mom?”

In an instant, J’Son seems centuries younger. Maybe it’s his eyes, age lines creasing into smoothness. “She introduced me to your films. The moving pictures?”

“Please, I know what movies are. Kevin Bacon?”

“The hero of your planet,” he says, the first confident statement that didn’t involve his history.

“Finally, someone in this worthless universe gets it! John Wayne?”

“Your mother informed me she’d leave me for him if the opportunity arouse.”

“Her first great love.” Petra flaps her hand. “No offense.”

Infinitesimally, the words stick and sink into him, softening the disdain. J’Son leans back in his chair, smiling with closed lips. He’s figured it out, and he’s not surprised. In fact, he seems more - proud.

“You’re not staying,” he announces.

“See, the thing is - I’ve already got a family. They may be the daughter of Thanos, a sentient tree, a humor-ignorant muscleman, and…whatever Rocket is. But…” Petra shows her hands. “They’re part of the Petra Quill package.”

J’Son rises. His spine straightens and his shoulders roll forward as he folds his hands behind his back, the freaking epitome of royalty. And he’s shimmering faintly around the edges.

“Your mother taught me to dance,” he says, like sharing a secret.

Petra grins wild.

*

“C’mon, J-Man! Boogey with it!”

He refuses, of course. Emperors are too dignified to break it down.

But from the passenger’s seat in the cockpit, he watches her. Her and Gamora and Groot and Drax, and even Rocket, tapping his hind claws absentminded to the beat, and it’s something.

Petra doesn’t have a word for it yet. But it’s definitely something.

 

***

“The hell is this thing?”

“An iPod,” Carol repeats, sounding out each syllable slow. “You really haven’t been to Earth since 1988, have you?”

Petra looks down at the tiny rectangle in her hand and back up to Danvers’s twinkling eyes (Petra didn’t know people could actually _twinkle)._ She makes a noise something like “ehhmehhhhh,” and experimentally slides her thumb over the circle dial. It’s so small. And white. And how are earbuds better than headphones?

“Won’t you need this?” she asks.

Carol cocks an easy shrug, hand jutted on her hip. “I’ll drop by for it later. I’ve got my library downloaded into Harrison’s systems, anyway.”

Petra can’t imagine sharing so easily. Maybe she should learn to. She pockets the iPod with a careful pat.

“Listen to Bonnie Tyler first,” Carol says, pointing a glamorously gloved finger in the general direction of Petra’s nose. “You need Bonnie in your life. The ‘80s were a golden time. I also threw some Ke$ha on there, and Stark can bite me. Like he doesn’t have a playlist of shame.”

Petra snaps her heels together and salutes. “Yes, ma’am, Captain, ma’am.”

Later, huddled over a Scrabble board, Petra demands, “So a fight between Thor, Cap, and the Hulk. Who wins?"

“Me, obviously.”

Petra’s lips spread wide. “I like you, Danvers,” she says, the flirtatious tone slipping out before she can help herself. “Okay, so who’s better in bed: Thor, Cap, or Stark?”

“Again, don’t I win that?”

It’s official: if drunk, she’d get a tattoo of Carol’s face. Petra lifts her tankard full of water and they toast over the board.

“I _really_ like you, Danvers,” she declares.

“I like her more,” Rocket bellows from a room over. They locked him up after he went on a screaming, gun-toting rampage (worse than usual) after Carol’s cat. Apparently it’s a mystical being called a _flerken._ No one was impressed. Least of all the cat.

“What can I say,” Carol says around a grin, “I’m very likeable.” She drops a letter on the board, one away from _army._ Smart-ass.

“And what is up with that…” Petra wiggles her fingers. “Harry Potter wannabe?”

Carol bites back a laugh. “How do you know Harry Potter but not what an iPod is?”

“Catching up on pop culture’s more important.”

“Stephen’s great. Helped save our butts a lot. He’s just - committed to his craft.”

Petra doesn’t hold back her snort. “That’s one word for it. Who the fuck goes around wearing a _cape?_ Who isn’t a God of Thunder?”

“What I want to know,” Rocket yells, “is why no one’s bothering to set me up with Black Widow.”

“I think we know she’s out of your league, big guy,” Petra says, flicking a tile with her nail. “Spider kills weasel.”

Carol eyes Petra’s move suspiciously. “Quill, that doesn’t count. No invented words in Scrabble.”

“Spoil sport.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you guessed Mads Mikkelsen as J'Son, congrats, you win a prize! Really, though, morally ambiguous but not evil Mads!J'Son is my dream, because I love that Spartax Emperor dearly. Hence why I made him a mash-up of his early self and his evil self that fit with what little we know from the movie, because Cardboard Cutout Villain J'Son makes me sad. Indulge me, Marvel!
> 
> Hopefully the part with Carol made sense, but if not, consider it an after-credits scene. (Carol needs to be Nicole Beharie. MARVEL PLS.)
> 
> There's an accompanying Awesome Mix #2 here (https://8tracks.com/arestlesswind/climb-on-my-back-and-we-ll-go-for-a-ride-in-the-sky/) if you're interested. It has all the songs mentioned, plus more for fun.


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